'Free' energy technology goes on display

Technology developed by an Irish firm that allegedly defies basic laws of physics to produce free power today goes on public display for the first time.

Steorn is challenging worldwide cynicism over its claims to have stumbled upon a revolutionary discovery that creates clean, constant energy and could end the global fuel crisis.

While 22 scientists continue their exhaustive tests on the Orbo technology the inventors are asking the public to come and see a demonstration for themselves at Kinetica Museum, Spitalfields Market, London.

A live working demonstration will be streamed on the internet from 6pm tonight. It can be viewed on the web from four different camera angles, before opening to visitors on Thursday.

Sean McCarthy, chief executive of Steorn, said: "What we are showing basically is a very simplified version of the technology. It's virtually all-clear plastic and magnets so we are demonstrating obviously that there is no battery hidden and so on. What the system will be doing is literally lifting a weight, demonstrating work being done for free."

Mr McCarthy said the company decided against using the technology to illuminate a light-bulb because the use of wires would attract further suspicion from a scientific community that has denounced the invention as heretical.

The technology, based on the interaction of magnetic fields, and yet to be conclusively proven or declared a hoax, created a stir after Steorn placed an advertisement in the Economist magazine last year challenging the world's scientists to test its claims.

The company picked 22 of the world's leading scientists from Europe and the US for the review, which started in January and is not expected to be completed before the end of the year.

Mr McCarthy insisted Steorn are contractually obliged to publish whatever the scientists conclude in full, adding that the €8 million invested in the technology to date and the company's reputation were at stake.

"Obviously Steorn and Sean McCarthy would never recover if there is a negative result here. But we don't see that as even an outside possibility," he said.